Gardening Questions water lillies

Have an old pond with lots of water lilies leave them in all winter and in the spring cut off all the old roots replant and put them straight back to the bottom. This is against all the rules but they grow and I have a great show of flowers. I do take the leaves off as far down as I can when they start to die. Hope this helps.

Thanks- do you leave any of the old leaves and shoots?

The leaves tend to die back at the end of the summer and I pull them off as they die. When I start them off I trim the roots but leave all the new growth of small leaves. As the leaves die try and get as much of the stem as you can reach. Hope this helps